How Verizon lets its copper network decay to force phone customers onto fiber
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Fiber is the future and it it here to stay. In trying to hold on to the old tech, these Verizon customers are forcing Verizon to stagger their support between two technologies for much longer than they would otherwise - leading to diminished customer service and perceived reliability for both.
- happy customer of Omsoft/Sonic.net
I've got this problem that seemingly every 4-6 months, lots of line errors/disconnects develop (consistent over days). Call up the ISP, and when they run a test, the line goes back to normal. Last time they even sent an ATT (nee SBC) lineman out anyway, but of course his test looked great too. Apparently you can pay Sis Bell $1k or so for "line conditioning". If it gets worse, my plan is to just get the ISP to provision a second circuit and then cancel the first.
But overall, it's certainly much less stress than dealing with the cable company or telco directly.
Maybe it's cool to hate on this article for being about 100-year-old tech, but the real problem is that Verizon--a piece of the old AT&T monopoly--is right back up to the old AT&T tricks.
Verizon stopped rolling out fiber.
Verizon isn't investing in their old copper network.
Are they losing customers? Not really. For many customers, Verizon is one of maybe two choices. If the other choice is worse, what do you do?
Here's a link about Comcast but it applies: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140602/05510527434/john-...
The article is about those to whom they are trying to roll out fiber, but insist they want copper instead. People who have fiber in their buildings, who just need to have it run upstairs to their apartment, who instead want the copper repaired.
Verizon issued a press release a while back saying they'd no longer deploy FiOS in new areas. Fire Island was one of the few exceptions to that, and only because people weren't happy with Verizon trying to give them cellular service in place of the copper network the hurricane ruined.
Now, US telecom companies aren't very likeable, sure. I'm with them there, as I imagine most people are. But it's not good journalism.
In a properly regulated market the customer gets to choose the option that suits them best, but as everyone knows the situation with US ISPs is bananas, far too much power in the hands of too few companies.
In a free market, the provider would say something like "that's fine, we'll keep maintaining the old server as long as you're willing to pay the costs", where said costs are now 100x of what they previously were, since you're no longer sharing the upkeep. You could then decide yourself if this were really the best use of your resources.
In Verizon's case, though, prices on copper POTS service are regulated and can't be raised to reflect upkeep costs. So when most customers switch to fiber, the money coming in from the few remaining copper customers doesn't actually cover maintenance costs. That means maintenance of the copper network is being subsidized by FiOS customers. Whatever Verizon's other evils (and I agree with you that there are many), a government-mandated transfer of wealth from fiber adopters to copper-clinging Luddites is not good policy.
Most of what people perceive as Verizon's evils are the result of government-mandated transfer of wealth.[1]
The way most markets work is that new technology is introduced in the premium segment, and trickles down to everyone else once the fixed costs are amortized. In almost every city, Verizon is legally prevented from doing this. If they want to wire up a city with FiOS, they can't start with the rich neighborhoods and expand to poorer neighborhoods as it makes sense to do so. They have to commit to wiring up the whole city in one go. Because that's an unattractive proposition in most places, they've halted new FiOS deployment.
The same thing is true of the existing copper network. Many of the places that are currently wired shouldn't be wired. In a free market, they wouldn't be wired. It makes no sense to wire them, for remoteness or density reasons. The reason they're wired is that the government taxed certain of Verizon's customers to subsidize the customers that it doesn't make sense to build out to.
[1] I'm not against such programs as a principle, but when you try to implement it "by the back door" instead of through direct subsidy, as the government has done in the telecom sector, you get exactly the sort of dysfunction that we see now.
Forcing Verizon to maintain copper means slower rollout of fiber and slower internet. It isn't reasonable for people (Ars) to want faster better internet service, and also to complain when copper is removed.
Yes.
>and regulated in exactly the same way as their copper service
Sort of. It's required to support number portability and E911, but there's no uptime requirement.
>It is still effectively the same landline service.
Also, no.
http://www.verizon.com/support/residential/phone/homephone/g...
"Call Restrictions: You cannot receive Collect or third Party Calls, and you cannot place 900 calls using FiOS Digital Voice"
"Battery Back Up In case of a power outage, FiOS Digital Voice will operate on battery back up for approximately 8 hours if an active battery is inserted in the Battery Backup Unit"
That is not the same quality of service that I expect from my copper POTS service.
It doesn't matter if you force Verizon to maintain copper or not, Verizon cancelled all new FiOS rollouts back in 2010. Unless you're in an area already serviced by FiOS and under an agreement, you won't get fiber from Verizon. Note that they will finish the few bits of neighborhoods where they have an agreement and most of the fiber laid... eventually... unless they decide to renege on their promises, of course. Verizon agreed to set FiOS up for all of NYC by 2014 and has been trying to weasel out of that agreement for over 2 years. My neighborhood has no fiber service yet.
They stopped rolling out fiber because they needed to improve adoption in areas where they already deployed. Supporting copper is slowing the whole thing down.
I'm not in Verizon territory, but I did try ordering the Verizon Freedom Package earlier today from their website (POTS + unlimited LD, an asston of features) just for the purposes of arguing in Manhattan, an area where FiOS service is offered.
Nothing I tried would let me order that; I'd always, inevitably be redirected back to the digital voice order page.
We have a regulated market. Time Warner, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon are the ones who have captured it. Slowly becoming like government bureaus.
There is no such thing as a proper regulated market. That's like proper communism.
If you want regulated telecom, this is what you get.
There is a distinction between the absence and presence of regulatory capture. Preventing regulatory capture is obviously a hard problem but that's hardly any reason to countenance its presence.
There are many other examples where a cheap good's price is significantly increased but few people care because the regulations don't impact them and it's still cheap.
A good example is the western states that don't have many natural resources. The government decided that water was a human right, built a ton of irrigation in the desert, and now you have populous states like Arizona, Nevada, and much of Southern California that shouldn't exist and cannot sustainably exist.
In the end it's just a question of how many thousandth of a cent your willing to pay per gallon and you can have water anywhere you want. Agriculture happens to need a fucktun of the stuff but food is easy to move and land in those areas is cheap. So, it actually is reasonable for people to build on cheap land out there simply because it's not useful for anything else.
PS: Shure, we are rapidly draining a few aquifers but there is little point in leaving the water there in the first place.
> A fiber line that carries POTS traffic is still subject to utility regulations.
A person at Public Knowledge told me that VZ is supposed to offer a POTS (well, TDMA) fully-tariffed-and-regulated voice service over FIOS.
That doesn't appear on their web pages, so I called to see if I could order it. Nobody in their call centers knows of such a product. Then I used a web-chat, and, surprise, the existence of such a thing was flatly denied.
I'm in VZ FIOS territory, but I'm not interested in being their customer.
They don't call it Fios, but it'll work over their fiber if you don't have copper connection.
It makes me sad that the FCC may put the brakes on fiber rollout because a few people are upset that their phones won't work during long blackouts. It must be a small population; I can't even name a single person under 50 that has a landline.
At some point telcos stopped supporting the telegraph too.
That being said though, regardless of your preference, the point of the article is that there's advantages to copper that nobody is trying to replicate with fiber-based last mile delivery; all people are asking for is that there be no significant drawbacks for them if they're to be given something seen as an upgrade.
Think of it this way - what would you say if the gigabit fiber offerings we're seeing only gave 750 kbps of upload bandwidth?
Yes, I'm now subject to failures of my home internet service (Comcast), my cable modem, and my wireless router, and if I lose power it all goes offline. But so far it hasn't been enough of a problem that I want to go back to the expense of a separate POTS service.
Verizon cares only about ensuring that their phone service doesn't fall under the regulations of phone service
http://www.timmins.net/2013/12/11/how-att-verizon-and-comcas...
Every article I've read about Verizon suggests they're run by dickheads, I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to switch to an alternative provider, why is LLU not popular in the US? To make it clear, LLU means you can lease the same copper or fibre lines to run your own ISP as long as you install your own routing gear in the exchange. I know it's very popular in the UK.
In the US, the situation might charitably be described as a bit more complicated - the copper was laid by private actors, although under protection from the state. It is, at least, a lot less obvious that the copper isn't some sort of private property.
Regardless of either, the PSTN is a great tool, and an incredible, self sustaining network. The fact that Verizon would shrug it off in favor of running off with the money Netflix gave them to resolve their peering dispute or what have you instead of trying to innovate illustrates their future in telecommunications.
Though I think by now, it's incredibly obvious it isn't a bright one for consumers. With any luck, a company like Frontier who gives something beyond a negative fuck in regards to the wireline network will end up buying it up and smashing Verizon with it.
50% of Americans don't use a landline.
Verizon offers phone service on fiber.
In any event though, you're really missing the point here; the problem isn't abandoning copper. It's not providing an equivalent grade of service to one we've had for decades now.
Verizon has long supported regulated POTS service over FiOS. They're now trying to push people towards a form of phone service that's no longer regulated for quality or price, among other things such as the requirement to share the outside plant with competitive carriers. You know how the push for net neutrality is gearing towards Title II classification for internet? That's precisely what they're trying to steer clear of; they still want to offer phone service, but offer it as an unregulated Title I service - much like the internet is classified right now.
As for the issue of local instead of common battery, the POTS standard requires 50 milliamps of power. I'd be absolutely shocked if there was no way to reliably deliver that over fiber.
tl;dr, this is really more a regulatory issue then a technology one. It's actually very similar to the debate going on about the internet right now. Technology is just the excuse being given to getting around Verizon's obligations as a common carrier.
40% don't have access and a bunch more never use it. And that is including people who use VOIP and services like cable company voice services.
>In any event though, you're really missing the point here; the problem isn't abandoning copper. It's not providing an equivalent grade of service to one we've had for decades now.
We aren't owed a super reliable voice backup service. Especially if its not economical.
>You know how the push for net neutrality is gearing towards Title II classification for internet? That's precisely what they're trying to steer clear of; they still want to offer phone service, but offer it as an unregulated Title I service - much like the internet is classified right now.
Verizon is abandoning it and nobody is rushing in to take over. I wonder why? It's an unprofitable business. Are you going to invest your lifesaving's in a POTS service? Of course not.
>Technology is just the excuse being given to getting around Verizon's obligations as a common carrier.
Not get around it, Verizon is seeking to avoid being one. Unless you are willing to regulate the shit out of Apple's facetime, skype, google video, etc. etc, it should be no shock that Verizon wants out.
Buy an old flip phone if you want a back up for a major outage.
Cable and voip likely have more to do with bundling, and Verizon actively trying to force people to FiOS/off their network then anything else. They clearly aren't competing to modernize their DSL services to compete against cable, and as such, people have switched over to their internet service. Take a look at any thread with 'Comcast' in the subject line. I don't think I have to tell you people feel stuck with their services. Anyway, since bundling has become such a common practice, it's likely much more economical to buy phone service from them instead.
> We aren't owed a super reliable voice backup service. Especially if its not economical.
So let me get this straight - a service that the majority of the country has, and can be found in nearly every business across the country isn't economical? A grade of reliability we've had for decades isn't economical anymore? I suppose unlimited internet plans aren't either.
> Verizon is abandoning it and nobody is rushing in to take over. I wonder why? It's an unprofitable business. Are you going to invest your lifesaving's in a POTS service? Of course not.
Actually, Frontier, Fairpoint, Windstream and Hawaiian Telecom have bought out a ton of states Verizon used to provide service in, but okay. Verizon isn't selling the other states they still service; that's why we're hearing about them refusing to maintain their infrastructure. Not these other companies. Hell, from what I've been hearing, things have gotten better under their ownership.
> Not get around it, Verizon is seeking to avoid being one. Unless you are willing to regulate the shit out of Apple's facetime, skype, google video, etc. etc, it should be no shock that Verizon wants out.
Those are commodity services that operate over other peoples' infrastructure. Let me know the day when any of these services operate dedicated links between peoples' homes, and starts offering 911 services, faxing, circuit switched data transport, interactive voice response services, and the myriad of other things people use the phone network for.
Would it not make more sense to demand the utilities provide more reliable power in the face of an emergency (even at increased cost)?